Surprise cupcakes
Ruth and I went to a "fake it 'til you make it"-themed movie night/dinner party last week. (Think Mrs. Doubtfire or Big. We ended up drawing Weekend at Bernie's.)Choosing a thematically appropriate dish wasn't too difficult; we opted for savory cupcakes, roughly following this vegetarian meatloaf recipe. We dyed mashed potatoes garish shades of red and blue and piped them on. The finished product was surprisingly tasty, though not so yummy that we'd let people taste them unawares. Very little is tastier than expected chocolate.
Vegetarianism is so passé
According to this Times article, fatty slabs of meat are all the rage in New York. There the best chefs serve:- Pigs’ head meat with mayonnaise in sandwiches served on toasted brioche
- Fried marrow cubes
- Lardo bruschetta (pig fat on toast) euphemistically named "proscuitto bianco" by Mario Batali before it was popular
- Pickled watermelon and fried pork belly cube salad
"I was touched by the way our server — let’s call him Sisyphus — replenished the moist towelettes at our table over and over again. What we really needed him to do was put a dropcloth under us and, at meal’s end, hose us down."
Comments
I felt mildly insulted that this fatty binge was a described as a counter-cultural reaction to too-healthy California Cuisine. As if light, vegetable-centric food has somehow taken over to the point of requiring rebellion. Meaty excess is still the American norm. Deep-fried pork belly doesn't strike me as any more revolutionary than a double-bacon cheeseburger.
I was recently surprised by my reaction while reading an article in the NYT that mentioned that food prices were up a lot over the past year -- pork up X%, beef up Y%. To which I wondered: OK, but what do pork and beef have to do with food?
Post a Comment
Hide Comments
Chocolate cupcakes with raspberry coulis
This chocolate cupcake recipe over at Cupcakeblog.com is terrific. I adapted it for a picnic last weekend by omitting the goji berries and salt, and cutting out the top to pour in a raspberry coulis (pureed raspberries, fresh lemon juice, and sugar, strained twice to remove seeds). Even though raspberries are pretty much my least favorite berry, when paired with really good chocolate (about 75 cents of chocolate per cupcake), they were really yummy.
Comments
Post a Comment Hide Comments